Good Vibes, Hilton Sisters, Big Bets, and the Tara Reid Monkey Joke

I've been thinking about some of my fellow bloggers recently. I've been doing my best to try to send out positive thoughts and vibes to a couple of folks who have been/are going through some tough personal problems. Felicia is having health issues. If you can, please send her your best wishes. I also have read that Sir F has been going through a lot of family drama. I feel for you, bro. Just hang in there. I've been trying to see if I can transfer my "giving bums a buck karma" to them. Best of luck. I hope things can only get better. Recently, everything I encounter in life seems so much more significant than this poker blog. That's a discussion for a future post.

Let's talk about poker. I played $3/6 on Party Poker a lot this week. I haven't been at a NL table in days. According to my PT stats, my most profitable hand in 2005 (NL and limit) has been the Hilton Sisters. All hail the pink-clad heiresses everywhere! I was especially lucky when I flopped a set and ended up cracking pocket Hellmuths with the Ladies. An orbit later I scooped another pot with the Hiltons. In the back of my mind, I had already written the blog entry... "The Aroma of Fish: More Misadventures with Pauly, Nicky, and Paris." I think that the karma police can read my thoughts and they shared that privy information with the poker gods, who quickly put a call into Party Poker and requested a swift kick in my junk. The result: my QQ cracked by 46s. Ouch. At least it was a small loss.

This week, I also hit a rush of hot hands. I picked up aces four times in one session and they all held up. I booked a quick win after an hour or so with some very good tunes keeping me comfortable: Solomon Burke, Galactic, Lou Reed, and Medeski, Martin & Wood.

Late nights I've been playing on Full Tilt working off my bonus. I saw Glyph win a two-table SNG last night. At one point, he had more chips at the final table than the other seven players combined! I've been playing well on the $3/6 tables. After I built up my bankroll playing NL the last week or so, I decided to test out the waters on $3/6. The other night, I took down a monster pot with pocket Hellmuths after I cracked... the Hiltons! Last night, the rush on the $3/6 tables continued and I booked another winning session. I seem to feel the same way after I write a kick ass hort story, post a winning session, or get a killer blow job... there's always a smile on my face and a spring in my step.Yeah, in some sort of freak accident, my Full Tilt bankroll is now almost 6x more than my initial investment.

I felt confident about my return to the $3/6 tables. However, I ran into a small slump playing Turbo SNGs on Poker Stars. I was cashing in 2 out of 3. My pathetic Party Poker SNG mojo spilled over onto the tables on Poker Stars. I made several bone head moves and was outdrawn on a few others. That's when I decided I should seriously cut back on SNGs. Why? Because SNGs are the crack cocaine of online poker.

Quick changes/observations:

1. I eliminated Party Poker SNGs from my diet.
2. Patience pays off more than aggressiveness.
3. Focus is as important as a high pocket pair.
4. I stopped reading blogs/news articles during my sessions.

Yeah, since I stopped pissing away my bankroll on SNGs, there's been a nice spike in my online bankroll. That 30% loss I lamented about a few days ago? It's almost wiped out! I'm caught up... and I'm on a rush this week, up for the month, and I almost broke even for the year. I thought I'd need a nice run in Vegas to help get me out of the hole. Switching to limit has been good for the way I think about poker. You pretty much play on auto-pilot... ABC poker... and it's a nice change of pace. I learned that patience is key to grinding out winning sessions. Anxiousness is the shortest path to tilt. You can quote me on that one.

Limit is very relaxing for me. I do not feel compelled to "force the action" like I often do in NL after a string of crappy cards. Also, I feel that I'm paying much more attention to my table. I never mulit-table but I allow other distractions that indirectly set me on tilt. I stopped reading blogs and news blurbs because I felt my mind wandered away. I'd rather give one solid hour of intense poker than 3 hours of toggling back and forth between playing poker and reading my favorite blogs. Don't worry, I still find time to read everyone. In the last week or so, I visited everyone on my blogroll.

Yesterday, I got phone calls from everyone's two favorite bloggers... Grubby and Al Cant Hang. What a treat. Al was drinking and Grubby was at the Sho-West convention. He caught a glimpse of Jessica Alba. He's one lucky dog.


March Madness: Friday's Big Bets

Vermont +9 over Syracuse
Charlotte +3 over NC State
Kansas -14 over Bucknell

Yesterday: 0-2

OK, so as far as college hoops goes... I'm getting my ass kicked. I feel like Ben Stiller in Something About Mary when he caught both "the beans and the frank" in his zipper. Oh well, it's still early. In the first round, I put out a lot of feeler bets. Yesterday the two bets that I didn't make were winners and I would have been even if I didn't hold back. I haven't looked at my sheets yet. I'll wait until tomorrow morning to see where I stand in my pool. If you are in my March Madness Pool, you can visit Pauly's Pub for updates.


A Picture Worth 1,000 Jokes



Tara Reid and a monkey walk into a bar. The bartender shouts out, "Where the fuck did you get that animal?"

The monkey answered, "Hollywood!"


On that note, I am outta here. Have a good weekend. Oh, I almost forgot... good luck Poker Geek! Make us proud.